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Sophie Beutel, 17, is the top scorer for Toronto's Northern Secondary and one of The Star's picks for the girls basketball all-star team in the Greater Toronto Area. (VINCE TALOTTA / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

By David GrossmanSports Reporter

Mon., Jan. 4, 2010

Sophie Beutel has the moves of a basketball all-star and the mind of an honours student.

Her heart is with her mother, Marcia Visser, who is battling breast cancer for a second time.

Beutel, 17, is the top scorer for Toronto's Northern Secondary and one of The Star's picks for the girls basketball all-star team in the Greater Toronto Area. She led Northern's eight-player senior squad to the provincial quad-A playoffs.

Her mother has often been a boisterous fan at games. The cancer was diagnosed and treated for the first time nine years ago, but returned and required more surgery early in 2009.

"It's on our mind," Beutel said of her family - she has a brother, Elliott, 20, and sister, Rebecca, 12. "We try to keep things in perspective but I wouldn't be telling the truth if I said we weren't all worried."

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Beutel, a 6-foot-1 forward with the Red Knights, has achieved academic honours four times and powered her team to a 21-5 record, taking control of games with a keen shooting stroke and by hustling for rebounding.

"This is a huge honour," Beutel said of the all-star selection. "There are so many great players and for me to get picked is something very special. I called my mother. She has been a huge factor in my success, very supportive and even when I do mess up (in basketball), I can hear her in the seats. She has missed some of my games because of illness, and I get worried when I look up at the stands and she's not there."

Northern coach Wendy Luck has high praise for her star player.

"She has been a force, not afraid to drive the lane, and a big scorer," said Luck. "When opposing teams double-team her, she gets the ball to a teammate who finishes off a play. To me, that's more than a great player but a leader, too."

Beutel averaged 17 points and 12 rebounds a game and has drawn interest from several schools including the University of Toronto, UBC and Simon Fraser but hasn't made up her mind. Brown, an Ivy League school in Providence, R.I., is also on the list. Her mother drove her down for a visit two months ago.

Beutel started playing basketball at age 8 and recalls how uncomfortable it was being the tallest kid in the class. Now she's using height to her advantage, playing several sports (including volleyball and soccer) and also club basketball with the Sultan Prospects, one of the top triple-A teams in Ontario.

"I thought about quitting basketball to spend more time with (my mom) ...but she's getting better and wouldn't want me to do that at this stage of my career," said Beutel, whose hopes an academic average of 90 will lead to a career in medicine.

Joining Beutel in the all-star lineup – selected from roughly 100 names with input from game officials, coaches, other players and fans – are forwards Jamie Ruttle from Burlington's Notre Dame, a provincial quad-A silver medallist, and Wumi Agunbiade from Dunbarton High in Pickering. Ruttle is off to Canisius College in Buffalo next year, while Agunbiade is going to Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.

At guard are Shanice McKoy of Toronto's Pope John Paul II Panthers, a workhorse for the Toronto District Colleges Athletic Association champions whose only loss in 34 games was in the provincial quarter-finals; and Kayla Grossett from Thomson, the best from the Toronto District School Board. Grossett is off to Mount St. Mary's University in Maryland while McKoy is thinking about the University of Toronto or a full scholarship from Eastern Michigan.

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